Related Links

Dean, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Professor of Operations Management

Sunil Kumar is dean of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the George Pratt Shultz Professor of Operations Management. An expert in theoretical operations research, he has previously studied performance evaluation and control of manufacturing systems, service operations, and communications networks, as well as the application of optimization methods and control theory to managerial problems. In particular, he studies systems affected by stochastic variability via mathematical models. Kumar has published dozens of scholarly research articles and has served as the editor of the Stochastic Models area of the journal Operations Research. He co-developed a widely used factory simulator for teaching operations management. The simulator, “Littlefield Technologies,” has been used in classes at more than 50 business and engineering schools. He also served as an operations consultant to several companies.

Kumar joined the Chicago Booth faculty on January 1, 2011, after spending 14 years on the faculty of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business where he was the Fred H. Merrill Professor of Operations, Information and Technology. At Stanford, he also served as senior associate dean for academic affairs, overseeing the school’s M.B.A. program and leading faculty groups in marketing and organizational behavior. While at Stanford, Kumar was awarded the Finmeccanica Faculty Scholarship, was named a Spence Faculty Scholar, and received multiple teaching commendations. He also was named Professor of the Year at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad.

Born in India, Kumar received a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Mangalore University in Surathkal and a Master of Engineering degree in computer science and automation from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. He earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.